2013 Alaska (3/3): Wrangell St. Elias Cabin

One week in a Public Use Cabin in Eastern Alaska and an overnight hike in the Hatcher Pass area in the Talkeetnas – this is how I spent the last ten days of September in Alaska.

After we returned from our Eastern Alaska Range Traverse, Katharina and I thought about what to do next. Her feet didn’t allow any more challenging hikes, so we decided to do something relaxing: a week in a cabin would be nice, somewhere in the wilderness.

I remembered the free Public Use Cabins in Wrangell St. Elias NP that I had come across during my hike through the Northern Wrangells in 2010 and I thought: this is just we are looking for right now. So I called the National Park Service and made a reservation for the Caribou Creek Cabin which is accessible from the Nabesna Road at the north side of the park.

The very next day, we hitchhiked from Palmer to Slana, camped there and reached the cabin the next afternoon. A week filled with relaxing, day hiking and some photography was ahead of us.

Before we returned to Europe, Katharina and I joined our good friends Keith and Bev Earley on their hike in the Hatcher Pass area. While they spent the night in their self-made teardrop trailer, the two of us pitched the tent at the Upper Reed Lake and enjoyed the end of the season – what a wonderful summer it was!